


Of Scars and Swords

by spotty_lion



Series: Final Fantasy Shenanigans [12]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 20:09:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21433993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spotty_lion/pseuds/spotty_lion
Summary: The battlefield was his stage. And he had practised his lines.
Series: Final Fantasy Shenanigans [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1135331
Kudos: 2





	Of Scars and Swords

It occurred to Jack, on the battlefield, how interesting the notion of Hatred was. It could mould a person; shape them;  _ fuel _ them, as if they were nothing but machinery, nothing but engines, nothing but something to be fixed by the tools of men and women. It was fascinating, Jack thought, how Hatred was thought to be a clumsy, messy tool. But, he realised, as he looked at this man, in all his armour, with all his blades, Hatred could, in fact, be very useful.

For Zenos yae Galvus, for all his gloats and inflamed claims, was no fool. Unhinged and bloodthirsty, but no fool. Every swing of his sword was calculated and planned, every step was predicted, every block met with a second attack. 

The battlefield was his stage. And he had practised his lines.

Lines through which Zelda was written off. Scripture that decreed Ronja would meet her match. A plot that turned the antagonist’s gaze from those close to his heel, to one much further away from him.

One that wielded the arcane stars in his hands.

Jack could not help but pin his ears to his head. He saw the hungry look in Zenos’ eye. The crazed breath of blood on his cheek. Magic would not wipe his smirk from his lips. It was difficult to imagine that anything would.

He who seemed indestructible, his wards impenetrable, his strength a bottomless abyss. 

The hrothgar found fear in the bottom of his belly, struck behind his teeth, barely covered by his eyepatch.

An eyepatch that Zenos had spotted, had already concluded to be his weakness.

An eyepatch that fangs of the lynx was currently leaping for.

Half-blind or not, he saw that attack from a mile off.

It was at the last second that Jack moved, taking the fangs embedded in his skin down to the end of his muzzle. Blood spat at the blades as they fell from his skin. That blood continued to roar from the twin canyons in the cracked mud.

Blood that collapsed to the floor like lies from poisoned lips. It spread around them, casting its ugly words, staining the tile to grip onto his allies. 

Jack did not know what planet came from his hands to send Zenos to the opposite side of the room. He did not know whether he had held Mars in his hands or perhaps Saturn. He did not know if it was shards of the sun or moon that had pierced into the chest of the lynx.

All he knew was that he was one of the lucky ones.

His friends lay around him, gasping for breath through bubbling blood and cracked bone.

Blood and bone. The foundations of the battlefield. How sick of it he was. A thousand battles he had lived through, a thousand more than he had ever wanted to fight. And yet—

He still fought them.

And he would finish this one.


End file.
